Sulphur on 13/7/2010 at 18:02

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I recently got myself the THQ Pack off Steam, and Red Faction: Guerilla was part of the bundle. It's a game I find myself launching far more often than I'd care to admit.

At some point, I started wondering why I was playing it so often. Why was it so extraordinarily fun to play? The answer seemed obvious: the extremely satisfying destruction mechanic.

Which is true, to an extent. Reducing it to a word it's mayhem, plain and simple. In RF: G moreso than most, mayhem is the brush, and the gameworld is the canvas.

But there were still things about the game apart from blowing shit apart. Things I liked, and things that put me off. Things that I can't help but wonder could have been attacked from a different angle. So in putting my thoughts down to electronic ink, I had a (rather large) brain splurt about sandbox games that I feel like sharing.


What works:

1) A primary gimmick that you don't get easily tired of: in GTA, it's stealing hot cars, avoiding the cops, and racing around cities with ridiculous radio commentary in the background; in Just Cause 2 it's the grapple-hook and potential for creative destruction; in RF: G, it's just destruction, pure and simple.

2) Side missions that aren't ass: Self-explanatory, right? Couple of things to go along with, though.

RF:G has these 'Demolitions Master' missions that present you with a building, a limited amount of certain types of ammunition, and the goal is to get the building structure to critical within a time limit. Most of these involve a little finesse and are pretty inventive: there's one where you have a building off in the distance, a couple of drain pipes that point towards the building, a bunch of explosive barrels, and a bunch of sticky bombs. Figuring it out is a cute diversion: throwing the barrels down the pipes makes them roll and bump against the building, but you don't have a gun to shoot the barrels with. Solution: throw the sticky bombs onto the barrels, then throw the barrels down the right pipe, and detonate them when they reach the target. It's fun, and there's a nice amount of variation on the theme in most of these missions.

Most of the others are pretty typical and repetitive, but the beauty of this is because of (1), you almost never get tired of them anyway.

Example: ploughing into EDF armoured transports with a heavy walker and batting soldiers aside with your mechanical arms never gets old. And RF: G tends to throw in a twist into this every now and then too - for instance, it might be a light walker that can jump jet around, or a combat walker that doesn't have hydraulic arms of death but is armed with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers a la Mechwarrior.

So basically: a) if side missions are repetitive, they'd better still be fun the 256th time around, or b) twist the mechanics every now and then or even better, combine a) and b).

3) Consistent Rewards/Upgrades: Completing missions and side missions often gets you in-game currency, and every so often in RF: G when you complete a bunch, you get a new toy or an upgrade for one of your toys. Or a convenient gameplay mechanic like the ability to instantaneously warp to a safe house you've already visited before.

4) Engaging main missions and plot: RF: G doesn't do this too well, but I'm about 12 hours in and while the plot is slightly intriguing, it's pretty infrequently presented, and the sweep of it it isn't engaging at all. But a lot of the missions so far have been absolute riots. Just Cause 2 sucks in this regard as it has an almost non-existent plot, but the missions are never less than entertaining.

And conversely, I absolutely hate things like the bike chase missions in GTA, but the narrative's intriguing enough most of the time for me to soldier on.


What doesn't work:

1) Escalation: In RF: G and Just Cause 2, as your equipment gets better, your enemies become progressively more dangerous as well. This would be fine if both your equipment level and enemy dangerousosity (is that a word? never mind) increased in a strictly linear fashion, but it doesn't quite work that way.

In these games, if you cause enough mayhem, you're met with a response from the enemy. EDF, cops, whatever. Cause some more mayhem and increase your threat level, and you've got more enemies to deal with.

Then, if you continue on your rampage, past a certain point (five star level in GTA and JC2/red threat level in RF: G), the response isn't just a bunch of enemies warping in, it's an entire fucking battalion bearing down on your ass, each of them kitted out with uber weapons, and there's usually a swarm of rockets headed your way ahead of them to let you know what you're in for.

This could be dealt with if you're able to take large chunks of enemies out with your weapons or you could soak up enough damage. But you aren't, and you don't. So you just end up dying a lot, and respawning at a safe house. So what about this, then? Possible solutions -

[INDENT] a) 'There's nothing wrong with the mechanic. You should run when it gets too hot, you dumb fuck.' A pragmatic approach, but in RF: G or JC2 that's simply not an option a lot of the time when you're surrounded. JC2 has no cover system to speak of, and RF: G's is pretty rudimentary and only works on certain surfaces. A lot of the time, an attempt to run away simply ends up with you being a red stain on the pavement.

b) Borrow a page from GTA's book: Like the pay 'n spray shops, disguising yourself is a handy way of dealing with escalation. Or maybe in JC2 and RF: G, you could earn the ability to call in a distraction, or an artillery strike, or something to that effect.

c) Make the game less tough: Zap in less troops, or have the ability to change the difficulty in-game, which essentially makes you soak up more damage/deal more damage/reduces enemy hitpoints. Not a very optimal work around, but would be manageable nonetheless.[/INDENT]

2) Repetitiveness: Repetitive side missions, repetitive environments, repetitive design. All self-explanatory. RF: G dealt with the side missions bit to an extent as I outlined earlier; JC2 didn't, but the sandbox mechanic (and the primary gimmick of the grapple hook) left it to the player to make their own variations on the theme.

As far as environmental repetition went, RF: G and JC2 went about this by dividing the gameworld up into different zones with different environmental features - your usual snow/desert/tropical paradise tropes, but they still succeed in make running around doing fetch quest N easier on the eyes.

As for repetitive design: this is my personal bug-bear with the GTAs. In most GTAs till date, if I fail a mission, I've got to start over again by driving from the safe house to the mission start point. And even if a mission gives you the option to skip the driving, it's not consistently available.

Also: checkpoints for main missions. If a mission's going to take me a while to complete (the bank mission in GTA IV, for instance), a checkpoint every now and then would be nice. Especially if I'm just about to complete the mission but accidentally bumped into a police car just as I was pulling into the home stretch, and now have to evade the cops all over again. And of course, if my character dies in the ensuing chase, I'll have to replay the mission all over again.

Checkpoints: Rockstar, would ya kindly add this word to your design vocabulary, s'il vous plait.

3) Terrible narratives: A sandbox game's primary gimmick may be fun, but like any other toy it's only fun until I get tired of it, at which point I will turn to the game's plot to propel me along to the finish.

This is the reason why I know I'll probably never finish JC2, might just finish RF: G, and always feel like I need to someday finish GTA: SA and my 'evil' run in inFamous, and feel great about finishing Mafia (though it's not technically 'sandbox' or even very open-world). Good writing and a solid plot: it's not merely optional any more.

That's what I can think of for now. TL;DR - holy fuck, I could have actually done some productive writing around that steamy chakat fanfic I had planned instead of throwing this essay out here.

The end.


And now, I throw it open to you guys and your opinions: what works and what doesn't in your sandbox games?

Malf on 13/7/2010 at 18:54

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See, I think the absolute best example of these kind of games recently is Saints Row 2, and it's sometimes difficult to understand how the same people who made SR2 made RFG.
You see, in SR2, there's all manner of shit distracting you, with barely any of it being identical. On top of which, the scenery in SR2 is a bucketload more varied than in RFG. Okay, so the graphics can look like ass, but at the same time they have an enormous amount of charm, in no small part due to the insane amount of character customisation available. RFG just felt dull and forced in comparison, and something of a one-trick pony.

Plus, you can't beat a game where if (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9BoIEY4xA4&feature=player_embedded) Aha's "Take on me" or (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKdV7aMMK10&feature=related) Europe's "The Final Countdown" comes on the radio, there's a chance your character will start tunelessly singing along.

henke on 13/7/2010 at 19:14

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Err, well it only works if you're on the second floor, mind you.

As for SR2, I couldn't be bothered playing it through to the end. After I'd finished GTA:SA I did have some fun with SR, but for the sequel they hardly updated the driving physics, graphics, and thirdpersonshootering any, if at all. And in a post-GTA4 world it just doesn't cut it any more.

If you can find SR2 for around 10 euros it might be worth it but I'd recomend you spend your money on the GTA4 add-on episodes instead, if you haven't played em yet.

demagogue on 14/7/2010 at 00:50

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My favorite oldschool game Hardwar does sandbox well, which is why I keep replaying it.

I suppose it follows your list pretty well. The basic gimmick is flying around either moving high-value goods around the craters (attracting pirates) or pirating yourself, or doing the missions. Either way, you're constantly picking fights.

Then I like how you can make your mark on the world, buying hangers, setting up factories & shops, building your empire piece by piece. This is how you can really play the game forever. It works so well because the world really has a working economy, from raw resources getting mined, to the refineries, to producers, to wholesalers, to vendors, to consumers, to recyclers (when you decimate them then collect the scrap and bodyparts for resale, heh) and the cycle starts over ... You can intervene at any step in there; undersell and corner a market; control the flow of supply to make things you want to use or cut-off people you don't like. It leads to a really authentic feeling when you act in the world.

The story is a-fucking-tastic (edit: yes that's a mixed word, that's how cool it is), even poignant at parts. The setting is great: an abandoned mining colony with nothing for people to really live or hope for except make the most money they can before their short lives end. Utter dystopia.

The missions are functionable, usually either exploring the world or picking more fights, which is what's fun to do anyway, and like you said with GTA, you want to see where the story goes and play your part. There is a little tension between the sandbox side (building your commercial empire) and following the plot (getting off the planet), e.g., you have to piss off the factions for the story, but probably don't want to for your business. But then you can just surf both sides, follow a little plot, build your business, back to the plot, at least until the point of no return in the story. But I actually like that about the game, mostly because the story is so good, and then I can just go back and play the sandbox part forever without following the plot and it's every bit as good.

What else? Consistent upgrades, check. There are always bigger ships and weapons to buy, and when you start buying hangers you get into the big stuff.

The way it dealt with escalation was that every faction has a "wanted list". To get off it you have to assassinate someone else on it. Often that just gets onto someone else's wanted list, so usually you want to work out a way to get double-amnesty, so you're targeting 2 or 3 people you want to successively assassinate. I actually like the way that works; adds a strategic angle to it.

As for repetitiveness, I think the empire-building is good at mitigating that a bit. If you become a drug-wholesaler, sure there are a lot of drug runs to the same vendors, but (1) it's always a dangerous run so you can't relax too much and (2) you're making so much money every time and sucking the life out of your competitors that it pushes you on. Sort of Civilization-like; if you're inching your status ahead every time, then you don't mind the repetitiveness as much.

If somethings could be improved in the game, it'd be nice if parts had a little lower-level simulation, like you could get out of your ship and walk around the hangers (adding a FPS angle might rock) and do more things with your ship, actually see the mining and production going on and have more fine-grained control, and maybe more control over the business side, and the enemy AI could be improved with fighting (I love the AI's ability to participate in the economy, though). But it's pretty much my favorite game, so I have a lot of good things to say about it.

I didn't mean to post so much either, but I just played it again recently (and GTA3 for that matter) and was thinking about sandbox stuff, so this topic caught me in the right mood.

Koki on 14/7/2010 at 05:22

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Can a game with pre-set sidequests be considered a sandbox?